A New Book from West Chester University Press

West Chester University is proud to announce the publication of God's Eye: Aerial Photography and the Katyn Forest Massacre by Frank Fox, Professor of History. Of all the crimes in World War II, the most puzzling has been the massacre known as "Katyn Forest." Not until the fall of the Soviet Union did the new leaders of Russia acknowledge that in 1940 their government had ordered the murder of 27,000 Polish officers. For the grieving Polish nation that knew this truth for half a century there was the unfinished task of finding the burial places. The twentieth century has recorded millions of brutal deaths as well as unprecedented efforts to eradicate or hide the scenes of mass murder. In recent times, Cambodia, Srebrenica in Bosnia, Sri Lanka, Chile, Guatemala, the killing grounds in Africa and the province of Kossovo are proof that the end of Soviet and Nazi dictatorships did not put a stop to massacres and concealments. God's Eye describes the painstaking and unheralded work of a young Polish-American photo-interpreter, Waclaw Godziemba-Maliszewski, who was instrumental in the effort to locate the remains of the brave soldiers. It began when he came across a hoard of German aerial photographs at the National Archives and began to unravel one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Russian intelligence services -- the burial sites of the Polish officers. For the past ten years he has been supplying the Polish authorities with information that has enabled it, in spite of opposition and interference from the Russian side, to locate many of the remains. It is particularly important that the American public read this record at a time when American treasure and trust are being invested in a Russia whose leaders until recently concealed the truth about Katyn, pensioned off its executioners and refused to compensate the victims' families. This work utilizes materials from Polish, German, Russian and American sources, including documents that have only recently been declassified. God's Eye shows how in a struggle between the expediency of state power and moral principles, the dedication of one person can make a difference.

Published by: West Chester University Press
softbound, 8.5 by 11 inches, 136 pages, 26 b/w photo plates

by Frank Fox

His writings have appeared in a variety of scholarly and popular publications, including Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, French Historical Studies, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, East European Jewish Affairs, New York magazine, PRINT, The World & I, and Affiche. He contributed a chapter on Polish poster art for Tony Fusco's reference work Posters (New York, 1994) His essay "Poland and the American West" has been published by Washington State University Press in Western Amerykanski, a catalog for the 1999 exhibition at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage. He has edited and translated from Polish a wartime memoir, Am I a Murderer? Testament of a Jewish Ghetto Policeman, published in 1996 by Harper/Collins, and has written poetry for a cantata based on that work which premiered in Philadelphia in 1997. In 1998 he was invited to lecture at the National Museum in Warsaw on the occasion marking the 30th anniversary of the Polish Poster Museum.

• Polskie Plakaty (Polish Posters) (see Polish text)
• Tajemnica Blizniakow (Secret of the Twins) (see Polish text) Zwoje, No. 3 (28) 2001.
• Zagrozone Gatunki: Zydzi i Zubry, ofiary nazistowskiej pseudo-nauki (see Polish text)
  (Endangered Species: Jews and Buffaloes, victims of Nazi pseudo-cience)
• Swiat w niebespieczenstwie (World in danger) (see Polish text)